I must confess I would not want to be a research subject of Marci McDonald, the veteran Canadian journalist.

As a former foreign correspondent for Maclean’s and senior writer for U.S. News and World Report, she is an old-fashioned investigative journalist who assumes the real story is below the superficial surface.

Not that I have anything to hide.

But I fear that, in a short time, she would dig up every detail worth knowing about me, as well as those with whom I consort. It certainly appears to be what she has done with the Christian right in Canada.

McDonald’s new book, The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada (Random House), is a rigorously researched examination of how conservative Christians have been inexorably re-shaping the country’s political and cultural landscape.

Going deep into territory where most other Canadian journalists fear to tread, McDonald carefully reconstructs how a range of well-organized conservative Christians have become a potent political force in this country since they failed to stop the former Liberal government from legalizing same-sex marriage in 2005.

While acknowledging evangelicals are not monolithic, McDonald details how certain activists have become key players in Ottawa, where their battles continue over same-sex marriage, “big government,” abortion, Middle East policy, military buildup, the teaching of evolution and — what McDonald considers to be the next front — assisted suicide.

The book’s title, The Armageddon Factor, comes from evidence McDonald has compiled that a faction of Christian “nationalists,” some with the ear of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, himself an evangelical, are motivated by their Biblically literalistic belief that Armageddon, the divine cataclysmic Judgment Day, is set to any day wreak havoc on the planet.

Since her book came out early this week, Conservative Party of Canada officials have attacked McDonald — and, for some reason, the CBC, for doing a story on The Armageddon Factor. But it seems an odd tactic, given that most major media outlets across the country are eagerly covering her book.

I’m sure, however, that McDonald is not surprised by the attempts to marginalize her.

She recounts in the book how hard-line evangelicals have frequently labelled her a “Christian-hater” since she wrote the award-winning 2006 article for

Stockwell Day

The Walrus magazine that inspired the book, headlined “Stephen Harper and the TheoCons.”

Even though McDonald makes it clear she does not support the aims of Christian nationalists — who, she argues, are taking their lead from the more powerful U.S. religious right — she avoids mocking her subjects.

In a bid to avoid retaliation and lawsuits, she also takes pains to show her facts have been carefully compiled. Her source notes run for 34 pages.

As a result, The Armageddon Factor serves as an almost encyclopedic resource for the country’s political writers, junkies, academics and party activists, not to mention engaged Christians.

While outlining the history of theocratic politics in Canada, McDonald profiles movers in conservative Christian activism, including Science MinisterGary Goodyear, Canada Christian College president Charles McVety, and Dick Dewert, head of the Miracle Channel.

A surprising number of evangelical players and organizations with close ties to Harper’s government have B.C. connections.

They include Darrel Reid (below left), former head of Focus on the Family Canada, who is now deputy chief of staff in the Prime Minister’s Office, and Okanagan MP Stockwell Day (left), president of the Treasury Board.

Trinity Western University, a private evangelical post-secondary institution in Langley which last year received a $2.5 million grant from the Conservative government, has also been intimately involved in federal politics, according to The Armageddon Factor.

Darrel Reid

Through its Ottawa-based Laurentian Institute, Trinity Western has sent hundreds of Christian students on internships to the nation’s capital, where they have worked for cabinet ministers, MPs and in the bureaucracy.

What is the future of the Christian right in Canada, given that only 10 per cent of the Canadian population is evangelical, compared to 30 per cent in the U.S.?

And what should voters make of the intentions of Harper, who, despite his evangelical loyalties, has not hinted he might repeal same-sex marriage or abortion laws while head of his minority government?

The author

Even with her small-l liberal values, McDonald does not make simplistic or dire forecasts.
But she rightly points out that the country’s evangelicals, and to a lesser extent its Roman Catholics (who make up more than one third of the population) have become more inclined to vote Conservative since 2006.

She also makes a decent case that Harper has developed links with some conservative Christian activists who despise secularism and believe the country should be run on “Biblical principles.”

She worries Harper might become beholden to them.

In the end, despite the attacks already coming at her from some Conservative Party and Christian quarters, McDonald reminds readers that evangelicals come in a variety of political stripes, including centrist and left-wing.

And while the Canadian Christian right has momentum now, she says, it’s not a juggernaut.

At the end of her many years researching the book, McDonald, to her credit, realized she was studying a complex, ever-shifting movement.

“I couldn’t avoid the conclusion that the Canadian evangelical community defies every attempt to stereotype it.”

*** UPDATE *** Ron Dart, a political scientist and religious studies professor at Fraser Valley University, has given The Armageddon Factor an A++. Read his extensive chapter-by-chapter review. Dart teaches in Abbotsford, which many call “The Buckle of the Bible Belt.” His review has a few quibbles, but generally applauds the way McDonald “connects the dots” of a network of what he calls Christian “republicans” in Canada.

*** Second UPDATE *** Regent Colleg
e theology prof. John Stackhouse has taken on McDonald’s book with a couple of postings on his lively blog. In short, he thinks it’s “very bad,” full of mistakes and “preposterous paranoia.” That said, he thinks the Religious Right in Canada warrants more attention. When I get some time, I’ll make some comments on the flood of sharply divided reviews being incited by The Armageddon Factor. Interestingly enough, despite their different takes, Dart is a graduate of Regent College, where Stackhouse now teaches.

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